game environments

Game environments, they are one of the most important aspects of gameplay, they can convey so much to the player at a conscious or sub conscious level and can be used to heavily navigate us in a particular way and direction which may or may not be noticeable. I am going to look at and think about different game environments I have encountered and analyse their effect on me as the player.

As you are probably aware there are many types of environments in games, and the way they are set out and the restrictions or effects they have on the player are described with such terms as, linear, non-linear, sandbox etc. take a game like far cry 2, it’s a sandbox first person shooter which means that you are pretty much free to roam wherever you want, this type of game is meant to give the player freedom to approach everything be it the campaign or general exploring in the way that they see fit. I think this does add a massive amount of realism to games, however sometimes I feel a game can be too open and actually prefer to have restrictions to a certain degree. For me personally I have a huge dislike for large amounts of travelling in games such as far cry and I know the main feature of the game is to be huge so that the environment can be explored by the player but to be brutally honest I enjoy getting to my next objective or wherever I am heading to be as quick as possible. I suppose this begs the question why did I get the game in the first place, I actually liked the idea of a huge open world type game as I had never really played one before but also the fact the game featured a map editor and being able to download other peoples maps was a great feature, I basically became sick of the environment which was a fairly barren, mountainous orangey brown boredom as far I was concerned and never ended up completing the game although I have gone back to play it now and again but it just doesn’t excite me enough to be motivated to play it.

Another open world game environment of which I am a fan of is fallout 3 but not because you are able to fast travel between locations although it does add to the fact I enjoy it but its more because the environment is so much more interesting to explore, its based on the aftermath of a nuclear apocalypse situated in New York and you are able to visit various recognisable landmarks and some of the missions take place in and around them as well. although I don’t think the graphics are anything special in fallout 3 the environment is very well executed and really gives a great feeling of what it would be like after a nuclear apocalypse with the dark and dank metro tunnels and sewer systems, I remember very early on the game where you first have to go into a metro system tunnel and being very scared of doing so, its not very often a game scares me to a point where I don’t want to traverse through a certain part and I think this was due to great environment design which actually immersed me so much that I physically didn’t want to enter that metro tunnel.

After watching the film l.a confidential for the second time it suddenly clicked the game l.a noire was a huge well I wouldn’t say rip off, I suppose homage to that film. The style and all round atmosphere of the film reminded me very much of the game, I had seen the film before playing the game however I only put the two together after seeing the film again after playing it, also the titles are very similar and almost definitely a homage in itself and also because its based on the genre film noir. L.a noire is an example of a game which is heavily stylised in its appearance although this obviously to emulate the feel of the film it oozes a very 50’s feel and portrays its very well.

From looking at different games and thinking about their environments overall I think they are very important in giving the game the right feel whether it be something like  portal that has a very clinical and laboratory style feel to crisis 2 with a very high detailed and realistic surround.